Know When To Fold 'Em

In case any of you are keeping track, I have a whopping 16 days left until I'm supposed to run a marathon. As I mentioned before, training took quite a hit after the holidays and I more or less (definitely more, big time) never recovered.  I've been doing everything but training the last month.  I mean, I've been running but nothing that will lead up to a successful 26.2 miles.  First of all, I recently gave into peer pressure and started watching 'Downton Abbey.'

Yes, I know, I'm late to the party.  Four years late, but when you think the premise of a show is basically people cleaning a big house in the early 1900s, you don't really jump at the chance to binge watch your way through it.  Big mistake.  I am currently convinced there is no better show on television.  It's hard to get off the couch and run 15+ miles when Maggie Smith is yelling at people.

You know what also makes running difficult? Puppy snuggles. 

We've made leaps and bounds in the whole letting me sleep more than ten minutes, but now when I wake up she likes to do this cute thing where she yawns and sticks her tongue out as far as she can and then pretends to snuggle into my shoulder, but then bites my hair, and then I yell at her and immediately feel bad for doing so, so we just lay in the bed and snuggle until I'm certain she's forgiven me for yelling. It usually takes up two hours.  

Also, I like to sit at home and stare at my hand. 

That is probably the most time consuming of all of my activities that interferes with my running. I've tried running and staring at my ring, but again, I'm not exactly a walk and chew gum at the same time kind of girl, so that would just result in my first trip to the emergency room as a fiancée. (Sorry) I would like to give you a time frame of when the bragging about being engaged will stop, but I'm assuming that will line up with a wedding date, which hasn't been set yet, so as of now, I am permanently insufferable.  I'm ok with it, you can be too. 

Anyways, the point of this is, I will not be running 26.2 miles in 16 days, and basically I have no good reason.  All of this was to distract you with puppies and shiny things.  Usually works ON me, thought it would work FOR me this time.  Seriously though, sometimes, you just have to know your limits, and for now my limit is 13.1 miles. The nice thing about a marathon is they'll typically let you back out and run a half marathon that same day instead. I keep telling myself this probably happens a lot.  The lesson learned here is: Marathons cannot be run immediately following the holidays.  Well, at least not by somebody who likes to drown herself in eggnog and pie. Oh well. I still get a medal and a picture, and that's all that really matters. Hey, at least this way I'll get to keep all my toenails.

Enjoy your Friday, kids.  

Wedding Underwear

You know what's fun?: Planning a wedding, training for a marathon, and having a new puppy.

You know what's really close to ruining my life?: Planning a wedding, training for a marathon, and having a new puppy. 

I always told myself that when my boyfriend and I got engaged, we would run down to the courthouse and call it a day. I was always more concerned with buying a house and saving for our future than spending that money on a wedding. And then I got engaged. Trust me when I say, anybody who says they're not interested in having a wedding will definitely think twice once they have a ring on their finger. The split second before he proposed I decided I wanted a wedding. Now that everything has settled down after the holidays and wedding planning has begun, I have decided to either throw myself off a bridge or just stay engaged forever. 

Shoot. Me. 

I will never again scoff when I read an article about a celebrity's $5,000,000 wedding. That shit adds up. Quick. I set a budget, started contacting vendors, added everything up, and then drank wine until the crying turned to laughing. So, I pushed the wedding back a year, and then bought myself something online and felt 75 times better. For now, I shall keep the wedding on Pinterest, where it's free.

P.S. The thing I purchased online was a pair of underwear with 'Mrs' blinged on them.  Somebody told me once you purchase your wedding underwear everything else will just fall into place.  Or was it dress? Whatever.

Sigh.

You know what makes me cry more than wedding planning? Marathon training. I was on a roll before the holidays. Running 30 to 40 miles a week, and feeling great. I hit December 6th, busted out the OUC Half Marathon, and then everything fell apart.

The boyfriend decided to give me whatever plague he had the very next day, and I spent the next week barely able to breathe after walking to the car, so running was a nightmare. And then the holidays showed up and I worked a million hours, and then ate and drank too much, and kept the running to a minimum. So now I'm 22 days away from the marathon and running about 25 miles a week, so I will most likely need one of you guys to swing by with a golf cart and pick me up around mile 15 to 16 on February 1st when the tears start falling and my feet forget how to be feet. Don't worry, I'm still loading up on the carbs like I'm running about 100 miles a week, so I'm covered there. 

Some of the hit to marathon training came from the most insane lack of sleep ever because puppies suck.

Yo.

Turns out, setting out to run 15 miles on 3 hours of sleep will end in a nice nap in the grass after 2 miles. But, since that silly face up there is the world's cutest alarm clock that only allows for cat naps, running as well as cleaning, being social, and any and all things that are required of a functioning human being have taken a backseat. Like the last row of a bus backseat. But she's cute, and likes to lick my nose, so what can I do? No, but seriously, she's really killing the sleep schedule.  I spent an hour the other day looking through my email trying to find one that I received offering classes for puppies under 12 weeks old.  Turns out, that was just a very very hopeful dream, and no such email actually made its way into my inbox.  Here's hoping big sister starts taking the lead sometime soon and helps me whip Reese Witherspoon into shape.  

Hopefully napping.

Engaged!

I bet you can't guess what this post is going to be about?! I tried to come up with a more subtle title, but all that came to mind was 'Holy Shit! I'm Getting Married!'. I still can't believe it.

The Monday before Christmas, the boyfriend called me a little flustered over something. That something was my first, and second best, Christmas present. After months and MONTHS of begging and pleading to increase our pet count, and constant, slightly angry, refusals by him, he gave in.

"I'm Reese!"

The flustered part was due to his attempt at making that sweet little face a surprise. Waiting until Christmas to pick her up was no longer an option, and he was at work, so I had to leave right then to go pick up my new baby. Yes, I cried. 

Now, I had actually thought I was getting a ring this Christmas, so the puppy completely caught me off guard, and I just assumed the proposal would wait for another day. Per our tradition, we opened our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, and the possibility of gaining myself a fiancé crept back into my mind. But, again, not the case. Which, again, I didn't mind, because I had a wonderful boyfriend and now two sweet pups to snuggle up to that night. 

The next morning, while we were cleaning up wrapping paper, because I open presents like a maniac, and putting away our respective gifts, I got my final and best present. 

!!!!!

It is five hundred times more perfect than I could have imagined, and I am one million times happier than I ever thought I would be. 

The thought of spending the rest of my life with him makes me feel so at ease with the way my life will turn out. I hope every person gets a chance to feel this way. Also, I hope you find somebody with enough sense to butter you up with a puppy first. We all knew this was a guaranteed yes when I got that first whiff of puppy breath. 

Now that I'm actually planning a wedding, I realized how counter-productive Pinterest is.  So far, I've come across two dresses that I absolutely must try on.  After some serious detective work, I was able to find the designer of one to inquire about the price of his dress.  And since $18,000 is more than my budget for my entire wedding, I decided to start working on hunting down dress number two.  After some more intense detective work, I was able to find a store that carried the second dress and it was in Melbourne! Just an hour away from my house. Perfect! I have to drive down to Melbourne to run that pesky little marathon anyways. This is totally meant to be.  Except, I can't read, and this store was actually located in Melbourne, Australia, not Melbourne, FL.  

Tina:  0 

Wedding Planning:  2

Whatever.  The nice thing about being engaged, is now I have a shiny ring on my finger to stare at until I forget all my problems and then run into a wall since I'm usually walking while doing this.  

Another bonus in all this is the band is gold, and I own absolutely no gold jewelry, and since I couldn't dream of making any changes to the most perfect ring on the planet, your girl gets to go shopping for new bling.

Holla.

You Win Some, You Lose some

Hey there. So marathon training was chugging along just fine. I found a training schedule that looked manageable and got to it. Last week my long run was nine miles.

            

Pat on my back, and I kept the general pace I'm gunning for in February. Also, I didn't feel like I was going to die afterwards. My feet were a little sore the next day, but I mean, it's nine miles. So this week the long run was ten miles. I easily could have added an extra mile onto last week's run, so this should be a piece of cake. Let me just add, that I also had a piece of cake before this run (I wish I was lying) which proved to be not the best approach at fueling up said run. So, what was supposed to be ten miles turned into seven miles and then me sitting on the sidewalk and playing with some grass until I felt like I could trust my legs to carry me to my car. So, you know, well on my way to busting out 26.2 miles. 

An important thing about running that I've learned is, if you're not 'feeling it', it's not going to happen. I don't mean before running either. Maybe I'm just speaking for myself but I never wake up or get off work and think in my head 'I sure can't wait to go running!' Doesn't happen. I usually wake up and lay as still as possible doing a mental scan of every muscle and joint in my body, hoping one of them hurts bad enough to warrant not abandoning my post, snuggling with my dog. On my drive home from work, sometimes I cross my fingers that I4 will be its typical I4 self and traffic will turn my twenty five minute drive home into a two hour drive and I won't have time for a run before going to bed. These rarely pan out. So, clearly, before I actually start running I'm never 'feeling it'. I'm referring more to during the run. I can usually tell pretty quickly into a run if it's going to be a good one or not. The first mile is usually so-so, because I start out a little full of myself at too fast of a pace. The second mile is usually spent regretting my mistake of starting out so quickly and trying to catch my breath. The third mile is spent nailing down my pace, and by the fourth mile I usually start to gain some confidence and feel pretty good. That's when I can tell if my run that day will be a good one or not. Needless to say, yesterday's run did not turn out the way I wanted it to. I have chosen to blame it on the water bottle I decided to carry that day. I am apparently not somebody who can carry something and run at the same time. Which fits right in with my 'can't walk and chew gum at the same time' personality. 

Side note:  I do at least feel pretty proud that I've went from just being happy if I made it two miles to being disappointed, for lack of a better word, in a seven mile run.

So what have I learned? Sometimes (very rarely) you shouldn't say yes to cake and my hands demand a certain amount of freedom while running.

So freedom they shall get. But you won't see me running like that today. Today is rollerblading day, so you will most likely see me in a bush or in the lake. I still haven't quite figured out how to brake in those suckers. 

Until next week kids, when I come here to tell you how cake once again foiled my training. 

Is This Thing On?

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you, blog. I've just been too busy, or too boring to write about anything, or dancing to Taylor Swift's new songs, or any combination of those things. You choose. Whatever, we all know what I've really been doing:  Charity work. 

She's been hanging out with me, guys. That's it. Nothing else.

Not true! I've been marathon training too. Are you finished laughing? Good, because it's true. Just 101 short days until I do what will hopefully be the hardest thing I ever do in my life because my feet already hurt. Don't worry, this won't turn into a 'running blog', mostly because I typically just complain about running and I'm not knowledgeable enough about it to start doling out advice. I've never really felt like a 'runner' even though I spend more time running more than I do anything else, besides working. I guess I've been waiting for that 'a-ha' moment to happen that makes me feel like one. Hopefully it comes after this marathon, because I've already put a ton of money into it and again, my feet hurt. 

And for anybody who doesn't buy the story that I've basically just been running for the last few months, I'll give you other options: 

1. I've been hiding behind my couch because I've finally watched that one episode of a true crime show that made me crack and I'm now convinced that every last one of you is trying to kill me.

2. I ate so much candy and drank so much coffee that my hands were too shaky to type up any blog posts. 

3. I've finally moved into the dog park and there is nowhere to plug in my laptop, and the wifi isn't so strong there. 

4. And the most believable of them all, Netflix binging. 

And I also picked up lying the last few months, this mayyyybe might kind of turn into a little bit of a running blog on some days, but mostly for accountability. For myself, of course, unless any of you other guys like to drink too much wine and sign up for things you have no business signing up for, then join in on the fun! Kill me.

Again, don't worry though, because the real star of this show will make her regularly scheduled appearances on here.

Although I'm sure some of you guys have gotten your regular doses of my blog's namesake on Instagram, check back here to put stories to that precious face and to make sure I haven't smartened up and thrown in the towel on 26.2 miles of hell.

Later, gators.

Birthday!

Guys. I'm OLD. Like old enough where I had to arrange my birthday shenanigans around baby showers and a friend's son's fourth birthday party. Old enough to refer to myself as 'almost thirty' in conversations. Old enough to need a full eight hours of sleep a day. The only thing making me feel better about this is harassing my dad about being old enough to have a twenty eight year old daughter. No wonder I'm his favorite. Anyways, instead of reflecting on this past year, which has been wonderful, I wanted to think more about the future. So, here are twenty eight things I want to accomplish this year.

1. Pay off all my credit cards. And somebody needs to put some type of law in place that forbids credit card companies from giving those suckers out to anybody under twenty five.

2. Run a marathon. (Already signed up for one of those suckers.)

3. Read more. I did attempt to do that last year, but spent six months on one book because Game of Thrones is hard.

4. Travel more. There are eight year olds out there who have logged more miles than me. What can I say, I love The Sunshine State. 

5. Visit my family more. They drive me a special kind of crazy, but there is a level of happiness that I can only achieve when I'm with them.

6. More girl time. No matter how much any girl describes herself as 'one of the guys', there's just nothing like emerging yourself in weekends dedicated to all things nail polish and wine and gossip.

7. Learn how to knit. Mostly because I have a strong obsession with scarves and hats and would prefer to point at the poorly scarf around my neck and proudly proclaim "I made this!"

8. Go outside more.

9. Complain less. Very few things in my life warrant a complaint out of me and I need to remember that.

10. Drive less. I live about 1/2 of a mile from everything. Time to lessen my carbon footprint and hop on the bike....it's somewhere around here.

11. Smile more. I am the proud owner of a resting bitch face, not smiling tends to scare strangers.

12. Kick this Target addiction.

13. Stop lying about kicking my Target addiction.

14. Quit smoking. This back and forth of not smoking for two months and giving myself permission to have a few cigarettes when I go out needs to go away for good.

15. Eat more veggies. I eat a million different fruits a day, but most veggies make me want a donut.

16. Get a passport. Just in case...

17. Worry less. Apparently turning  twenty eight brings about the wrinkles, so I've seen on my face heard.

18. Make more friends. Making friends as an adult is tricky but you can meet some wonderful people as you get older.

19. Be nicer. I consider myself a pretty  nice person, but I have my moments that I'd love to get rid of.

20. Reconnect. My high school reunion was last month and it put me back in touch with some great people that I don't want to lose touch with again.

21. See snow. I did see it once when I was three. I think Lake City got a solid 1/2 an inch of snow that we enjoyed for roughly an hour. I'm not a fan of the cold, but I could really get on board with sitting in a cabin and looking at some snow covered mountains out of a window.

22. Volunteer more. Every week I tell myself I'm going to volunteer at the ASPCA on Saturdays, but you know, sleep. 

23. Go pick up both my diplomas from UCF that have been sitting there since 2009, because I just can't bring myself to deal with the parking ever ever again.

24. Save, save, save. I'm not sure for what yet, but I do know that currently my savings account will possibly only buy me the front door to a new house. And maybe a welcome mat. 

25. More me time. My down time has seriously suffered the past few months and I can feel it everywhere.

26. Say adios to caffeine. The idea of surviving without it makes me twitch a little bit, which is a problem.

27. Convince the boyfriend that we NEED another dog. Anybody want to help me with a PowerPoint presentation?

28. Relax. My life is easy and happy and full of love and it wouldn't hurt to sit back and take that all in once in a while.

Here's hoping #27 happened and I'm playing with the new puppy I got for my birthday. Or the rollerblades I asked for. Either way, somebody's probably peeing on the floor or I'm wishing I had a helmet on.

PAR-TAY.

I Love You Like XO

Hello there!  Welcome to Monday, guys.  This Monday, I like. See, on this Monday, four years ago, my world got just a little better when I asked the boy I couldn't stop thinking about to be my boyfriend. Actually, I kind of just told him he was my boyfriend, but whatever.  He didn't object. I've never been much of a patient person so I definitely wasn't waiting around for him to ask me out.

            

The concept of long term commitment always seemed so foreign to me.  Whether it be because of my inability to hold interest in something for more than two seconds, or being a child of divorce, I truly believed I would never be interested in something long term with somebody. How are people with each other for decades? People change every minute of every day.  I just never saw it working for me.  It sounds cliché, but it took the right person.  The right person who I never saw coming. 

I still, and will always remember the first night we officially met and hung out.  A stranger approached us while we were talking and complimented us on what an adorable couple we were.  We laughed and thanked her but told her we were just friends.  I remember where we were, what he was wearing, what I was wearing, and the way he looked at me when she said that, and I knew this, whatever it ended up being, was going to be good.  And it was been.  So so good.  All of the ups, the very few downs, and everything in between has been more than I could have ever hoped for out of a relationship. 

           

It's funny how every little thing I've done and every little choice I've made up until this day four years ago put him in front of me.  Some of those choices were mistakes, but I thank God I every day I made them. If I never took a certain job or let a certain person break my heart or decided to go out a certain night, things might not be where there are now.  And if guess I wouldn't have known what I was missing if I never had met him, but I think somewhere, deep down, I would have felt different.  I would have known that something wasn't quite right in my life. 

Building a life with him has just come so natural to me.  I never thought twice about moving in with him, owning pets with him, buying furniture, all kinds of mundane, adult things that tie me to him long term, because I've been in this 100% from day one.  

I love you, dude.  These four years with you have simultaneously flown by too fast and felt like forever.  You make me happy all the time and I look forward to everything with you. Especially if you'll please let me have more pets.

              

(Sorry for making anybody throw up on a Monday.  Carry on.)